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User blog:BeastMan14/Historical Review: "Jackie Brown" is Tarantino At His Most Traditional
When people talk the best of Tarantino, you tend to get a lot of people saying his mainstays. Pulp Fiction is the usual top contender, though Reservoir Dogs, either of the Kill Bill films, and Inglorious Basterds tend to have their fans too. But there is an odd duck that pops up from time by the name of Jackie Brown. Tarantino’s follow-up to Pulp Fiction is his only adapted screenplay, an adaption of the novel Rum Punch by Elmore Leonard, and is mentioned by some, most notably Samuel L Jackson, as their favorite of his filmography. A departure from the tone and storytelling style of his earlier work, Jackie Brown feels like a more traditional thriller with Tarantino vibes than a true Tarantino film, but it still manages to be an entertaining and gripping film in it’s own right. Jackie Brown has all the trappings of a Tarantino feature: pop-culture savvy criminals, casual violence, and fast-talking characters, but it’s a blend between the styles of Tarantino and Elmore Leonard, a legendary writer in the western and crime fiction genre, best known for his work 3:10 to Yuma and his creation of Raylan Givens, the main character of the FX series Justified. Outside of changing the race and last name of the main character, Jackie Burke, Tarantino did his best to stay loyal to the source material, and it creates a slow burn storytelling different from his earlier works, which started with a bang. Jackie Brown starts not with a bang, but with a dialogue-free opening sequence as we see the titular character working her day job as a flight attendant. Rather than let dialogue establish characters like he normally does, Tarantino lets Jackie’s routine speak for her, establishing her as experienced and friendly, while using “Across 110th Street” by Bobby Womack to establish the film’s influences of the blaxploitation genre of the 70s, influences made clear by casting genre icon Pam Grier as Jackie. The film’s casting is another odd aspect of it. Save for Samuel L Jackson and Michael Bowen, it’s overwhelmingly stacked with newcomers to Tarantino’s work that he wouldn’t work with again, from Grier to Robert De Niro to Robert Forster to Michael Keaton. Despite the unfamiliarity with the work of Tarantino, it’s a solid cast. Grier is great as Jackie, a radical departure from Tarantino’s usual “hero.” Jackie is scrappy, cool-headed, and more sympathetic than, say, Mr. White, and her chemistry with Forster, a bondsman who falls for her and acts as her only true ally, is genuinely charming. (Of all things, I didn’t expect to say that Tarantino can write a good love story, but here we are.) As the film’s effective antagonist, Jackson gives another great performance, and his Ordell Robbie, an ambitious gun-runner, is a wild departure from his turn as Jules, feeling like a colder, meaner mirror to his previous turn. De Niro also feels as though he’s playing with archetypes, as Louis Gara comes off as a bumbling, ill-tempered parody of his character from Goodfellas. Michael Keaton is also solid, but underused, which is a decent definition of his career when you think about it. The script takes good care to establish these characters, to the point where Ordell is the protagonist for the first thirty minutes of the films, and the stakes of the world around them. The world of Jackie Brown lacks the same heightened sense of reality of Tarantino’s first two films, and it’s central conflict (Jackie trying to beat a smuggling charge after Ordell’s contact slips cocaine into her bag on top of the usual money) feels sadly familiar in the post-Clinton Crime Bill world of plea bargains and minimum sentencing. The film takes fighting “The Man”, a central idea of Blaxploitation, and in a way manages to modernize it. “The Man” is still around, and he’s become a bureaucracy of wannabe do-gooders. As a fan of both of these men’s works, it’s interesting to their styles mix. Jackie Brown is still quite heavy on dialogue, but it has more of Leonard’s charm and sense of grit to it. The characters feel realer, and the violence that usually feels like a cartoon has a bit more “oomph” to it, saved for the third act instead of being scattered throughout. While the shift in style creates a film that feels more plodding at times, there are moments where it intersects perfectly, specifically in the film’s third act where the music, writing, direction, and editing come together to create a heist that’s genuinely intense and leaves you watching with bated breath. Tarantino even brings back nonlinear storytelling just for this sequence, letting us see the job from three different perspectives and see the full scope of the plan at hand without beating us over the head with it. While his traditional writing quirks may be downplayed, Tarantino manages to update his filmmaking style so it stays fresh, choosing to work with lighting, editing and tracking shots to emphasize facial expressions and moments of suspense. A lot of the film is long, often unbroken takes that use silence in dialogue to their advantage, leaving you watching characters expressions as they think things over, often with music behind it to set some form of mood. A Tarantino staple that stays true to the film is it’s usage of music, overwhelmingly soul from the 70s, as a motif, alongside an actual score, which neither Reservoir Dogs or Pulp Fiction had. James Newton Howard’s score for the film is terrific, good at building suspense and giving the film a 70s vibe, with the drum beat over the final act sending tingles up your spine to let you know things are about to get intense. In conclusion, Jackie Brown never quite feels like a Tarantino film. It’s got all the trappings of one, certainly, but it lacks the same spice, choosing to go for a different feel so as to remain faithful to it’s source material. It works, to a degree, and manages to be a very fun, satisfying experience, but those expecting something like Pulp Fiction may be in for a bit of a shock. Overall Score: 80% Hypothetical Ballot: *Best Actress: Pam Grier *Best Supporting Actor: Samuel L Jackson *Best Supporting Actor: Robert Forster *Best Adapted Screenplay *Best Original Score *Best Film Editing Category:Blog posts Category:Historical Reviews